


always will be

by LiveLaughLovex



Category: Blue Bloods (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post-Canon, Post-Episode: s11e03 Atonement, can be read either as gen or as a developing relationship, it's really up to you as to how you want to interpret it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:28:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28375434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiveLaughLovex/pseuds/LiveLaughLovex
Summary: When Joe first walked out of his grandfather’s home and slowly made his way down the drive, back to the car he’d left idling on the curb, he honestly didn’t have any clue where he was going to go next. As soon as he slid behind the wheel, however, the answer came to him, almost as if it had been there all along, just waiting for him to figure it out for himself.
Relationships: Joe Hill & Original Female Character(s), Joe Hill/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	always will be

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't noticed, I love Joe Hill. So, I made him a friend to talk to. I hope you enjoy!

When Joe first walked out of his grandfather’s home and slowly made his way down the drive, back to the car he’d left idling on the curb, he honestly didn’t have any clue where he was going to go next. As soon as he slid behind the wheel, however, the answer came to him, almost as if it had been there all along, just waiting for him to figure it out for himself. The moment realization struck, he found himself on the road once more, headed in the direction of the one person in his life who always seemed able to make sense of even the most nonsensical aspects of life – his life, most especially.

It took him approximately fifty minutes to make the drive out to his desired location, a small town in Westchester County with a year-round population of less than one thousand residents. It was already dark by the time he arrived, so it took him a bit longer to find the driveway he was searching for than it otherwise would have, had he arrived earlier in the day.

The second he knocked on the door and was greeted, less than ten seconds later, by the face of his best friend, with her auburn hair pulled back from her face in a messy French braid and her eyes filled with a mixture of delight and concern as she took in the sight of him, standing there on her doorstep, his jacket damp from the rain that had only just begun falling and the look on his face likely the most dejected she had ever seen him display, he knew the drive and his struggles had been well worth it. Hers was the first face he’d seen in a while that seemed to display absolute fondness, the sort that was not coupled with a long list of expectations. In that moment, her face was exactly the thing he needed to see.

It seemed she knew that, too, because Emilia didn’t even bother to verbally greet him. She simply smiled at him, sympathetic without being pitying, then stepped to the side so that he could enter her home. He turned to face her once he was inside, watching as she closed and locked the door behind them – an old habit she’d developed living on the Lower East Side, he figured, and hadn’t ever managed to completely outgrow, even after over a decade spent in a town with a smaller population than most neighborhoods back in the city.

“Do you want some coffee?” she questioned, heading in the direction of the kitchen, trusting that Joe would trail after her. “Or some pumpkin soup? I was about to heat some up for dinner. I made a huge batch a few days ago. Even used fresh pumpkins, rather than that puree stuff. I do not care what they say; that stuff is no stand-in for the real deal, Hill; it’s just not.” She spun around to face him when he didn’t utter a single word, not at any point during her rather lengthy tirade, and exhaled softly, just as soon as she caught sight of the miserable look on his face. “So. Is that a yes for the pumpkin soup?”

“You’re not going to ask why I drove out here?”

She shrugged. “If you wanted us to be talking about it, then we would be. I trust you to know your own limits. Also, I know better than to look a gift horse in the mouth, Hill. I miss you. I’m never going to turn down a surprise visit, no matter what the reasoning behind it is.”

He studied her for a moment, and, upon seeing nothing but genuine concern for him in her dark eyes, simply heaved a sigh before pulling himself up onto one of her barstools and promptly burying his head in his hands. “Have you been watching the news, lately?”

She wrinkled her nose. “ _Absolutely_ not. I do enjoy still having _some_ will to live at the end of the day, and I find that, generally, five or more minutes of worldwide news coverage strips that right away. What’s on the news?” she questioned curiously, tilting her head to study him briefly before returning her attention to the simmering pot of soup atop one of her stove’s burners. “And why’s it got you so nervous that you decided to come to a region of the state that’s notorious for its lack of cell phone service?” she tacked on teasingly, ladling two servings of the soup into two separate bowls. She slid one across to him, along with a mug of fresh coffee she’d only just poured, and then circled around the kitchen counter with her own mug and bowl, taking the seat next to him at the bar.

“The news about the Police Commissioner being my grandfather got out,” he informed her evenly, sounding a great deal calmer than he felt as he uttered the words.

“Ah.” She studied him for a moment, then spooned a bite of soup into her mouth. “Well, shit,” she said once she’d swallowed.

He snorted a laugh. “Yeah. _Shit._ ”

“Does the rest of the department finding out about your family have anything to do with that black eye you’re sporting? Because I wasn’t going to say anything, but _hell_ , Joe,” she muttered, hesitantly reaching up with her free hand and brushing her fingers gingerly against his skin, “it definitely looks like someone got in a good hit or two.”

“Yeah, well,” he grunted, wincing when her fingers brushed against a particularly sore spot and smiling slightly in response to her quickly muttered string of apologies, coupled with several choice words, “it’s my fault, this time. I let what they were saying get to me. Instead of rising above, I made the decision to stoop to their level. My face paid the price, I guess.”

“Mm. And what where they saying to _you_ , exactly?” she questioned knowingly, dropping her hand from his cheek. “If it was just you those losers were being awful about, you would’ve been able to rise above, easy. You’ve done it more than once before. Hell, you did it when we were kids.”

“Well, you were the hot-head, back when we were kids,” he pointed out loudly, doing all he could to evade her original question. “Somebody had to be there to bail you out.”

“And I am and always have been thankful for your presence in my life,” she replied dutifully, the words sounding nothing short of sincere, despite their perfunctory nature. “I _also_ am and always have been very aware of your evasion tactics, so, go ahead and spill. We both know you’ll tell me sooner or later; might as well just get it out of the way now.”

He nodded once, clearing his throat. “They said some things about the family. About the Reagans. Things that I just… I couldn’t stand for. So, I got into a fight with them. I got a rip for it, of course.”

“Oh, of course,” she muttered sardonically, taking a shallow sip of coffee. “Because it couldn’t possibly be anyone else’s fault.”

“I threw the first punch,” he pointed out, spooning another bite of soup into his mouth. “They might’ve said stupid things, but I made it physical.”

“Can you _please_ just let me take your side, for once?” she said exasperatedly.

“You always take my side, in the end,” he pointed out, reaching for his own mug of coffee.

“Okay, well, can you please just let me take your side without _fighting_ me on it, for once?”

“I can do that,” he agreed easily enough, setting his mug back down. “Hey, Millie?”

Emilia glanced up from her bowl with a fond eyeroll. “You’re the only one who’s ever called me that, you know.”

“I know,” he assured her, smiling warmly. Everyone else called her by her full name, or by _Em._ He’d been using the nickname since they were five years old, though, and so he’d long since been granted approval to keep using it. He was the only one that had, though. Not even her parents had the privilege, and they were the ones who’d given the name to her in the first place.

She sighed heavily, though the sunny smile she shot his way belied her annoyance. “Yes, Joe Hill?” she questioned lightly, arching a brow as she stared at him. “What is it you wanted to say to me?”

“Thank you,” he said genuinely. “For letting me come out here, for letting me stick around. For being on my side,” he finished, glancing briefly away from her before green eyes once again met brown.

“Of course,” she replied, just as sincerely. She reached over to squeeze his arm, briefly, and then knocked her shoulder against his, that sunny smile of hers shifting into something that was a bit more serious, but no less found. “I always will be.”

After the past few weeks, Joe no longer inherently believed many things. But he inherently believed that. And he knew, beyond even the slightest shadow of a doubt, that he always would.

**Author's Note:**

> Emilia and Joe grew up together, by the way. They're the same age. Emilia just moved away from NYC when she was young, and decided to stay in the unnamed small town she moved to in the aftermath. She's a cop, too, who comes from a family of cops. There were a lot of details about her that didn't naturally flow in the story, so I left them out, but I took long enough coming up with them that I still want people to know about them; thus, I will leave them in the end notes.


End file.
